Brainstorm (1983)

Starring Christopher Walken, Natalie Wood, Louise Fletcher,  Jordan Christopher, Donald Hotton, Alan Fudge and Uncle Ben Parker.

Directed by Douglass Trumbull.

Rating:  

My mother-in-law is convinced that Christopher Walken and Robert Wagner killed Natalie Wood.

I mention this because it’s a bit of a running joke at the International House of Johnson; whenever Walken’s name comes up (and it does), one of us is likely to say “He killed Natalie Wood, you know.”

Robert Wagner’s name almost never comes up, ¹Because Robert Wagner is simply not Christopher Walken. and when it does there’s no mention of his involvement in the alleged homicide.

Laura and I don’t honestly believe that Natalie Wood’s death was anything but a tragic accident, ²For those who may not be aware of the circumstances surrounding Wood’s death in late 1981, she drowned after falling overboard from the yacht Splendour, on which she had been cruising with … Continue reading  but the fact that my mother-in-law is so convinced and is, consequently, so creeped out by Christopher Walken amuses us.

I guess we’re just morbid people.

Brainstorm was Natalie Wood’s final film. When my wife asked if we had anything interesting to watch Saturday night, I said, “We could watch Brainstorm. It stars both Christopher Walken and that woman he killed.”

Yeah. Morbid.

But it worked. She took the bait and we watched the movie. “Ohhhh,” she said when Louise Fletcher’s named popped up in the opening credits, “she plays a good bad guy.”

I think that’s part of why I didn’t like Brainstorm. See, Louise Fletcher—Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; she does indeed play a good bad guy—doesn’t play a bad guy. Sure, she’s cranky and she chain smokes, but there’s nothing at all malevolent about her character. Hell, she’s Walken’s love interest, for cryin’ out loud! Talk about failing to meet expectations.

*Psst! Spoilers ahead!*

I can’t blame Fletcher for playing against type, but if ever there was a movie that needed a bit more malevolence, Brainstorm is it. You’ve got a bunch of scientists working on a device that can record and play back everything a person experiences, complete with all five senses (and the promise of adding emotion and thought to the mix). Of course the military wants it! Of course there are shady back room deals and underhanded tricks and Michael Brace (Walken) is locked out of his own lab, denied access to his work…but none of it amounts to anything.

Lillian Reynolds (Fletcher), Brace’s partner, insists that she doesn’t want the military to use her work to kill people—which, of course, is exactly what they plan to do with it; they create Project Brainstorm based on Reynolds and Brace’s work. Brainstorm contains tapes that, among other things, can cause the viewer to experience psychotic episodes. When Reynolds suffers a fatal heart attack while working alone in the lab, she chooses to record the totality of her own death with the device…and leave it for Brace to view. When Brace begins to view the tape, he starts to experience a cardiac event and intends to modify the device to allow him to view Reynolds’ death safely.

Brace’s boss, Alex Terson (Cliff Robertson), forbids the scientist to view the death tape. Brace is locked out of the lab and must use every bit of early-1980s computer technology to get back in, hacking the system so he can view the tape remotely and destroy the lab—along with Project Brainstorm—in the process.

Ultimately, Brace is his own worst enemy. He puts himself in far more peril by insisting on viewing Reynolds’ death tape than anything threatened by the government goons (who plan to arrest him). And why does Reynolds, who was so adamant about ensuring that her technology wouldn’t be used to harm people, record her own death, an experience that she must know could be fatal to anyone who relives it with the device? Why, so Brace can get a glimpse into the afterlife, of course. Well, a 1981 version of the afterlife, that is. Lots of pretty lights and stars and nebulae and more lights that might be angels flying around a brighter light that’s probably heaven. ³This is to be expected. Director Douglas Trumbull also helmed Silent Running (1972), which features similarly bedazzling special effects. Between directing Silent Running and Brainstorm, Trumbull … Continue reading

Brace, of course, appears to die as a result of this experience, but his formerly-estranged-almost-ex-wife, Karen (hey, there’s Natalie Wood!) brings him back with—what else?—her newly-rediscovered love for him.

See what I mean about the need for malevolence? How about having Reynolds somehow imprint herself on Brace with her death experience, then editing that experience and using it to kill all the military-types who are after her technology? Better yet, have Reynolds imprint herself on Brace’s almost-ex-wife and do the same, leaving it to Brace to figure out what’s happened and stop her? Or just do something sinister with the military application, rather than hinting at it and destroying it so Brace can see a fancy LiteBrite.

So it was the expectation of something more sinister that led to my being so disappointed with Brainstorm. Terson’s motives for locking Brace out of the lab aren’t anything more than a desire to protect his friend. Sure, the government has nasty plans for Project Brainstorm, but it’s rendered almost entirely peripheral to the story by Brace’s insistence upon viewing Reynolds’ death experience. The journey wasn’t nearly as suspenseful as I wanted it to be and the ending was (to me, at least) a major anti-climax.

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Portions of this review originally appeared on the Whateveresque forum.